The Ghost Dragon's Daughter

by Beth Bernobich

  And oh, dear gods and dragons, I never want to go without that medallion ever again.

  #

  Four hours later, I’m at Pêng’s, my attention pinned not so exactly upon Cook’s explanations about spells to adjust the spices according to the rating on our menu. We are discussing quality, rather than quantity, when the kitchen door crashes open and Lili’s oldest sister marches inside. Her gaze runs all over the suddenly quiet room until it snags on me. She takes an ominous step in my direction.

  “I know you,” she says. “You’re Jun. Where is she?”

  My mouth flops open and shut. “You mean Lili? How should I know?”

  The sister hisses, just like Gschu, and her eyebrows twist into a knot. “Oh, right. You need motivation. Fine. Here’s the offer. When you decide to tell the truth, come to our house. My mother will pay good money to find out where Lili is. I know you need cash.”

  Without waiting for me to admit or deny what she said, she stalks out and slams the door behind her.

  All of us in the kitchen do the floppy-jawed staring thing.

  “Wow,” Cook says. “That was interesting.”

  Everyone stares at me. I attempt a weak smile, but I have no idea what’s going on. “I need to make a phone call,” I say to Cook. “Please?”

  Cook mutters, but waves at me to go. I vanish into the back alley and pull out my talk-phone.

  I try Lilli’s number first. No answer, not even her voice mail. I dial Mei next, who picks up on the first ring.

  “Mei, it’s me, Jun. Did you hear? Lili is—”

  “—she’s gone. I don’t know where.”

  We both pause and take deep breaths.

  “She sent me her data writer,” Mei says. “And a note. She says she added all the linguistics data last night. All of it, Jun. All the mappings, checked and double-checked. Everything we need for our presentation.” Her voice squeaks into tears. “She ran away, Jun.”

  I nearly sit down in the alley. “Ran away? Why?”

  “She says...because of her family.”

  “But where? How? Why?”

  Mei is silent. Right. She wouldn’t be this upset if she knew why.

  I take a deep breath and try to figure out what to do.

  “You tried to call her, of course.”

  “Of course. She didn’t answer.”

  So. Lili isn’t talking to anyone.

  Anyone human, that is.

  Gschu?

  Gschu grunts. I will not tell you where Lili or Biyu are.

  I never asked you that. But you might tell me where Yubi’s animal spirit is.

  Silence. Gschu has not disappeared, but her presence is muffled, as though she’s taken a few steps away from the human world. From Mei’s continued silence, I can tell she’s engaged in fierce conversation with her own spirit companion.

  Gschu? I say. Please help us. We only want to say good-bye. To know she’s safe. And happy.

  I hear another voice then, high and soft and fluting, that reminds me of pine forests after a summer rain, the air filled with the whisper of raindrops. She is not being unreasonable, Gschu. Let them say good-bye to their friend. They won’t betray her.

  Gschu makes a horrible rattling noise. Fine. Then you tell them, Ning.

  Ning laughs. Curmudgeon. To us, she says, Go to the Butterfly District, to the House of Painted Faces. But you must run.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Mei says and clicks off.

  I hurry back inside to find Boss. My shift has two more hours to run, but Boss takes one look at me and rolls her eyes up to heaven. “Oh, the drama. No, don’t explain. Please. Go wherever you must. You can make up the time later.”

  She’s not done talking before I’m hurtling out the door.

  The Butterfly District means the theatre district, and that’s on the south side of the city. No time for scrimping and savings. I race to the nearest wind-and-magic lift. The ready-whistle is already blowing for the next express, but I don’t even slow down. I dump all the coins from my pocket onto the counter, jump into the carriage, and snap the safety buckles together. Just in time. The whistle gives one last shriek. The brakes click off, and the carriage plunges down six levels, then shoots sideways across the face of the mountain.

  #

  Mei waits at the platform, dancing from foot to foot. I stagger out of the train, my stomach reeling from the express. I wave away the bottle of chai the attendant offers me. Mei grabs my hand, and we take off for the theatre district at a run.

  A street rat gives us directions to the House of Painted Faces, which turns out to be six or seven houses, connected by courtyards and passageways. A line of freight wagons stands by the front doors, and people are swarming in and out like ants. We ask for Lili. No one’s heard of her, but they all know Yubi. Through that courtyard, they tell us. Take the stairs to the third floor.

  It’s an enormous open square, the third floor, stuffed with noise and people and all the equipment and props that goes along with making plays. Stacks of paint buckets, old lanterns, lumber, and more have been pushed off to the side. I see what looks like a hollow horse, with a mask hung over its ear. Dozens of people are hard at work, filling up boxes and trunks.

  And there, there in the center, is Lili. So small and plain, and yet she like a moon among stars. Next to her is the skinny girl I saw before. She lifts her face and smiles at Lili, and suddenly she is another moon, bright and irresistible.

  “Lili,” I call out.

  Lili spins around. Six different expressions try to take over her face at the same time. “What are you doing here?” she says.

  “What are you doing here?” I burst out. “You never said anything to us last night.”

  “Of course not,” Lili snaps back.

  Right away, though, she sighs and makes an I’m sorry gesture.

  “It’s my family,” she says. “They decided to send me north to Shan-jin next week. No more apprenticeship with Uncle Gen. Oh, no. Their spies told them about our failure. I don’t need a certificate, they say. I certainly don’t need to spend another semester at Old Hsi’s school. I can earn my keep while some old merchant mage teaches me spells to keep fish oil from going rancid. Just to be clear, that means two years in a gods-forsaken port city, with no salary, just a few coins here and there as my allowance. I only found out yesterday.”

  She spits on the floor, a gesture that underscores her fury.

  “But...a traveling company?” Mei says. “Is that what you want?

  Lili glances at Yubi. “No, but I can do the work, and it’s better than Shan-jin.”

  “You ought to go south,” Yubi says. “Apply to drama school in one of the big cities. You have real talent.”

  “Talent but no money,” Lili replies. “Besides, I’d rather stay with you.”

  They sneer at each other, in a way that’s funny and tender and sharp, all at the same time. Then an older man appears at the door and shouts at everyone to start hauling their bags to the courtyard.

  Yubi dives back into packing. Lili hesitates, then smiles. “I’m sorry I worried you. You got my data writer?”

  “I did,” Mei says. “But—”

  “But nothing. You and Jun can do the rest.” She makes herding motions with her hands. “Go. I need to get packing. Once I get away, I’ll write. I promise.”

  I hug her. Then Mei does. We say our good-byes and leave.

  As we cross the courtyard to the street, however, my heart is falling into pieces. Sure, we have our data. And sure, Lili has escaped with her one true love. Except our machine doesn’t work, and even Lili is trading one difficult situation for another.

  A breeze spins around us, bringing with it the scent of pine and the electric quality of an imminent storm. A shiver runs through me. I’ve smelled that same scent before. Just last night, in fact, on a moonless street when I was certain was about to die.

  My ghost dragon materializes in front of us. Her eyes are narrowed in sardonic humor. “Jun,” she say
s. “What have you done with my dragon scale?”

  There’s a moment of chill and quiet, unlike any summer day, even in the Seventy Kingdoms.

  “Jun?” Mei whispers. “Is that a ghost dragon?”

  The ghost dragon draws her lips back in a grin. “You noticed. Well, Jun?”

  My tongue isn’t working at all, and my hands are cold and clumsy as I tug the handkerchief from my shirt and unwrap it. In the bright afternoon sunlight, the scale is almost invisible, a silver sliver of moonlight abandoned to the day. In contrast, the drop of blood is darker and denser than before. Dimly I realize there’s a corresponding drop of blood on the ghost dragon’s shoulder, and a blank spot, the exact size of my scale.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did you rescue me? And what was I supposed to do with this scale?”

  The ghost dragon meets my questioning gaze. “I wanted to make you a gift, a recompense for my own stupidity. It was my fault the watch demon appeared. My fault that you almost died.” She dips her muzzle to my hand, and her touch is like the breath of summer. “Make a wish, Jun.”

  She breathes upon the scale. My nerves shiver. She’s joking, I tell myself, but I feel a gust of invisible wind, smell the scent of magic and all that’s possible in the world.

  I wish...I wish I didn’t need to worry about anything, ever again.

  I sense a flutter of laughter from my ghost dragon. Well, sure. Not even a ghost dragon has that much power. I try again.

  I wish I had enough money...

  Before I can think anything more, before I can draw fences around my wish, fire shoots through my veins. No, that’s not right. I can’t name the sensation in human terms. It’s as though I am drowning in colors, alight with taste and song. Magic, magic is flooding my body, with no formulas or spells to control it.

  In a blink, the magic and the ghost dragon both vanish. So does the dragon’s scale, leaving behind a silver-white scar on my palm.

  And a single golden coin.

  Mei and I stare down at the coin, too amazed to speak. It’s double the size and weight of any ordinary coin, and stamped with an image of the queen. I’ve never seen a gold coin before, much less one this size. I can’t even imagine how many copper yuan this translates to.

  The scar on my palm aches. Deep inside an echo of that magical wind ripples and fades away. Then I close my fingers around the treasure. I know what to do. I only have to do it before I change my mind.

  I run back into the theater. Lili and Yubi are stuffing their clothes into a large cloth bag. They turn around when I burst into the room. “Lili. The ghost dragon— She— Never mind where the money came from. Take it. Then you can do what you want. Stay with the company. Or find another city you like better. Go to that school. Whatever you wish...”

  I thrust the coin into Lili’s hands. She stares at it, her eyes wide and bright with hope. Then she glances sideways to Yubi. Both of them seem to have an entire conversation without speaking, because Lili leans forward and kisses my cheek. “You are very sweet, but very stupid.”

  “But—”

  She places the coin firmly back in my hand and folds my fingers over it. “Keep the money,” she says. “Use it to fix your monstrosity. Later, if you are still mad with generosity, you can send me a gift. Now go. We take to the road in less than an hour.”

  Lili chivvies me outside to where Mei waits. We have another round of good-byes, then Mei and I cross the courtyard and turn into the nearest alleyway. I still haven’t quite figured out what happened, or what comes next.

  Neither has Mei because she’s quiet as we retrace our path back to the wind-and-magic lifts, where I discover I don’t have any money except the dragon’s golden coin. The woman behind the counter makes an O out of her mouth before she tells me she can’t make change. Mei pulls out her own coin bag, only to discover she’s broke too.

  We look at each other, both dismayed.

  Then, the unexpected happens. Another unexpected.

  Mei claps both hands over her mouth. I think she’s choking until she tries to draw a deep breath and explodes into laughter.

  All the old women in the square turn around and glare at us. Dear, gentle, proper Mei tries to swallow her laughter, but she only snorts louder. That sets me giggling and snorting too. We both bend over, hands clapped over our mouths, the laughter spilling out like sunshine. I know there’s nothing funny. It’s how exhausted we are. How the whole day has been a loop-de-loop bigger than the biggest wind-and-magic train in the city.

  Eventually we stumble away from the ticket counter and collapse against the nearest stone wall. Mei is hiccupping. I’m having a hard time catching my breath. The old women are still glaring at us and muttering as they walk past.

  “I should get back home,” Mei says finally. “I left my sisters in charge of our cousins, and that’s never a good idea.”

  “I should go too,” I say.

  Neither of us gets up, however. We sit there, watching the people, and listening to the whoosh and clatter from the lifts. It’s the first time in two weeks that we’ve been so comfortable together. I don’t want it to end. Maybe Mei feels the same way.

  “Mei...”

  “Jun...”

  We both stop.

  Mei takes a deep breath. “Me first. Jun, I’m sorry about the other night.”

  My cheeks go hot. “Mei, you don’t need to apologize.”

  “I do. You and Lili are my best friends. I love you both, all the bits and pieces of you, but...”

  “Don’t say it,” I cry.

  Shut up, Gschu growls.

  Mei hears her, because she gives a hiccup of a laugh. “Yes, please shut up. Let me say what I must now, while I can. You see...” Her voice stutters to a stop.

  I wait. I will wait forever, because she is my friend, because I understand she needs me to listen, however long it takes.

  “I’m not like you and Lili,” she says after a while. “Or like anyone I know. Kissing and touching and...” Her face pinches into a knot of misery. “It’s not you. It’s not because I like boys and not girls. I’m not sure I like anyone that way. I tried. Oh, I tried.” Then in a whisper, “I used to think I was a monster.”

  “No,” I say fiercely. “No, no, no. You are never a monster.”

  I want to hug her, but I understand that is the wrong thing to do.

  I touch her arm. Very lightly.

  “You are my friend,” I tell her. “That’s all that matters.”

  She glances up. Her face is wet. But I see quiver of a smile behind the tears.

  “Forget your sisters,” I tell her. “Forget work. Let’s go buy some first class components and fix our monstrosity. After all, we only have two more weeks.”

  #

  Two weeks later is presentation day.

  Once again, ours comes last. While Mei and I wait through the others, I focus on a ragged scratch on my wrist. It came from our monstrosity, as we rebuilt it piece by piece with new components. Mei called it my badge of war. She had her own scratches, and we both have bags under our eyes because we have not slept more than three hours a night. We completely redesigned and rebuilt very bit of our machine, which used up 79.74% of the ghost dragon’s gift. The rest went to paying off our creditors and buying me a deluxe transit-card, good for an entire year.

  The teams make their presentations in the usual order, starting with Roulan and her sister. For all I know, they have both re-invented the world, but I honestly hear nothing until Feng Hsi calls out our names. Twice, because we were both lost in a fog of panic. The class laughs, but I can tell it’s a sympathetic laugh. They expect us to fail.

  Right, I think. I exchange a glance with Mei, who looks equally smug.

  We wheel our monstrosity to the front of the classroom. Mei hands me my share of the report. Everything has vanished from my sight except our machine and Feng Hsi, whose eyes are no longer muddy and faded, but are bright dark crescents in her face.

  Mei and I take turns deli
vering our report. We recount our initial theory, the research we performed to turn that theory into wires and spells and formulas. We are honest, as Feng Hsi insists, and so we tell about our setbacks and we admit that our material costs are six times what we had estimated. Mei lists those costs, but Hsi simply nods, as though the numbers do not surprise her.

  At last we come to the demonstration itself. Mei checks over the connections. I power up the machine and tap the startup sequence. The indicator light blink through the familiar pattern, then there’s a noticeable pause, as though our monstrosity has drawn a breath. I lean forward, willing it to continue. So does the rest of the class.

  “Ready for input,” the device says.

  Over the past two weeks, Mei and I argued about which language to use, which phrases to translate. Lili had provided us with linguistics data for all the trade languages, plus a dozen other languages from the Seventy Kingdoms and the surrounding plains. The safest choice would be the handful of stock phrases we originally chose, but in the end, we decided to aim for something glorious.

  Mei sets the switches for three target languages. One for the Phoenix Empire, one for Shan-jin where Lili was destined to spend her apprenticeship, and one for Shanguan by the western plains. When the yellow ready light glows, she takes a deep breath. Even I am not certain what she plans to say.

  “To my dearest friends,” she says. “In honor of your courage and loyalty, your stubbornness and your intellect. Without you, I would have a pile of junk and not this splendid machine. Without you, I would have no future.”

  There’s a fateful pause. I hear a click from within our monstrosity. Say it. I know you can.

  “To my dearest friends,” it says in the language of the Empire.

  Phrase by phrase, it translated Mei’s words from our language, into the three languages, turn by turn, and finally back to ours. The final translation is not exactly like the words Mei used, but the meaning is close enough.

  With shaking hands, I tap the shut-down sequence and the monstrosity goes dark. Now I can finally see my classmates watching intently. More important, I see the blandness completely gone from our teacher’s face.